One In A Long List
by RaeLynn Skye
Summary: Ephram loves Amy, this we all know, but how much?


Disclaimer: Everwood does not belong to me, and neither does the eternally sexy Ephram, though I would love him to.  
  
NOTICE: this fiction contains dark themes, and adult situations (though not in the sexual term) Please read with that in mind.  
  
Note: does not follow tv-verse exactly, duh, and I don't know if Ephrams age and status in school is accurate, I was intelligently guessing.  
  
One in a long list.  
  
It wasn't my first kiss.  
  
And anyone who thinks that is either on drugs, or just stupid. I'm sixteen years old, who the hell thinks that a hormone crazed teenage boy, attractive or not, has not been kissed by the time he's a junior in high school?  
  
It wasn't hers either. And that much I know for certain. She and Collin were close. And by that, I mean closer than I can mention without being tempted to stab myself with a cheese grater.  
  
Not that it would do much harm. Much as I may want it to.  
  
Fine, yes, alright, I admit it, the last thing that I would want my father to know, my sister to know, my mother to know, or Amy to know. I've hurt myself.  
  
And I'm sure that half of the people who think they know me wouldn't be at all surprised to hear that. I act jaded, and I act sad, and I guess that I am.  
  
But it wasn't because of that.  
  
I never tried to kill myself.  
  
Just sometimes, when you're so in love with a girl, and you're talking to her, and you think something's funny, and you look at her, and she's not looking back. That hurts.  
  
And it always made me wonder if I was real. I mean, how can it be that someone my age, with my level of depth, with all that I've gone through can sense something in someone else that hasn't ever been there, and never will be?  
  
It must have been when I was fifteen that I first succumbed to the temptation and bought the cartridge of replacement exacto blades.  
  
It was almost three months after that that I gathered the courage to actually cut. And by that time, the cartridge was almost empty, because I had pulled a blade out so many times and pressed them to my flesh, but not had the courage to do anything more than that.  
  
Anyhow, when that happened must have been a February, because I remember it being cold, and it doesn't often stay cold too much longer than that in New York, and I know it wasn't January. I know it wasn't January, because in January, I had been floating on air.  
  
The girl I liked that year had called me up, and we had talked for hours about nothing. And we talked at school too, and she convinced me to share some music with her, and loan her one of my manga.  
  
By February, I realized that it was a dare that she and her friends had concocted at their new years party to hurt me.  
  
She had "borrowed" one of my compositions, one of my first, one of my best, and soaked it in coffee. She also ripped up my manga, and told me off in front of the whole school.  
  
That was when I first cut. It was nothing at first, just a little nick on the inside of my upper arm.  
  
After a while, it grew to carving things there, hearts with little arrows through them, stars, names of people who had hurt me.  
  
My dad never noticed, because though he was paid to take care of other people, he could never take care of what was his. And my mom was too absorbed in being sad about my dad, and trying to cover it up.  
  
And, well, my sister was too young to know that blood wasn't supposed to be in the bathroom sink if I told her that it was normal.  
  
When my mom died, I was almost relieved. She couldn't pretend that she cared any more. But my dad was so sad, and my sister was so sad, so I pretended to be sad.  
  
And I just cut myself more. Because I wondered what kind of a person I was who wouldn't morn over my own mother's death.  
  
In Everwood, I started cutting myself every day, still on the insides of my arms, cutting flesh over scars and watching the blood flow like water. My father was less tied up in work, but still too tied up in grief to do anything about it.  
  
But when I met Amy, things started to change. I only cut myself three times the first week I knew her.  
  
The second week it was only twice, and the third, only once. After that, I went almost four weeks without doing anything.  
  
But it didn't stay that way for long. When the whole thing with my dad and the surgery and Collin came up again, I started up again. First it was only once.  
  
It was the day the doe came, and I was just too screwed up to stop myself. Then, the night after we took her back, after I told Amy, I carved her name into my flesh for the first time. Because she had caused me real, serious pain for the first time. Then the next week, when I couldn't help but try and get the person who was between us back and actively between us, just to make her happy, that was when I cut myself again.  
  
But the day of the surgery, it all seemed better. She was so.nice, almost too nice, and I knew that it was only because we were friends, and it was stupid to think otherwise, but I couldn't help it, so I let my mind wander to a place where we were more than just friends. To a place where we held hands, and where she kissed me, and where I could touch her without her taking it the wrong way.  
  
But I didn't cut myself then. Because, for some reason, I realized that I couldn't, that I shouldn't, because she wouldn't have wanted that. Because she would have known, somehow.  
  
The day I kissed her, though. The day in the mine. God. I can't say exactly what I was thinking. She was just talking me to it. Telling me that I was a miracle, that I was what got her through. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Nothing, was I just supposed to let her tell me those things and do nothing? Nothing.  
  
I guess it would have been the best idea. Just let her spout, let her get it out of her system, just to keep things the way they were, comfortable, easy, so I didn't have to worry that she didn't feel that way. So I was comfortably in the dark.  
  
But I had to do that, didn't I? I had to kiss her.  
  
And that night, after I got home, I actually considered killing myself.  
  
I'd always known, instinctively, the way I should do it if I wanted to kill myself. I just never had before. I'd never been that down, never been that lost and low.  
  
But that night, when I walked into the bathroom, and the moonlight was shining on my skin, and the smile on my face, like a demented psychopath, knowing I'd never have to face pain again. I felt invincible. Eternal.  
  
So, instead of carving my arms into pieces, I shaved a layer of skin off of my pelvis, and dug her name into my skin with a dull needle.  
  
And the pain was like pleasure.  
  
  
  
She avoided me until church that Sunday. And I was elated, though I didn't show it. Because I knew, somewhere inside, that if she went back to him, I would be fine. I would go on, because I was eternal. And one day, when she realized that that asshole didn't love her, and that she would have been better off with me, I would be there.  
  
Or I would have moved on, and she would feel the pain I felt.  
  
And she would carve my name into her flesh, the only one.  
  
But she would be only one in a long list for me.  
  
And I would be the winner.  
  
And she would lose. 


End file.
